With the recent changes at the Nelson Star and its move to one-day-a-week, the discussion around the flyers has been fired up. Though flyers can be annoying to some, as a former editor of both the Nelson Daily News and the Nelson Star, I’m confident in stating that many readers rely on and appreciate the flyers. The complaints I received when people didn’t get their paper were almost always based on the fact they didn’t have access to their flyers that week. That made me sad as a journalist, but it made me understand the importance people place on flyers to help them with their consumer choices.
It’s also important to understand that newspapers rely on the revenue generated from these flyers to ensure they are able to deliver valued community information to people’s doors. If the Star doesn’t deliver the flyers, these businesses will find a way to get the same paper products to your door. These recyclable flyers would continue to be in the waste stream… and again I will emphasize “recyclable.”
Obviously the traditional financial model of newspapers has been dramatically impacted over the last decade and claimed its share of casualties, including the closure of the Nelson Daily News in 2010. It continues to change, but at this point flyers are still important to the businesses, consumers and newspapers themselves.
The bottom line for me is that I want to continue to see strong professional journalism in this community and the team at the Nelson Star is providing just that. People need to be careful what they wish for because there is another side to this discussion.
Bob Hall
Nelson